Episode29
Treewee Safari We left off with the party bushwacking through dense bush searching for the Sacred Grove at the heart of a floating jungle ball. How did we get there? Oz had spent time speaking with various Treewee elders about the Sacred Groves and piecing together what he could from Ancient Library knowledge. From these clues he managed to figure out a way to detect the Groves using conventional scanners. For that, he enlisted Chip'Kick's help with promises of glory for being the squirrel that rediscovered the Sacred Groves. In exchange, Oz would get to keep some 'souvenirs'. They spent a block in Chip'Kick's 'super-scanny' ship and managed to locate a Grove! From there, it was only a matter of organizing an expedition and setting out! The Jungle Ball was crawling with life which we handily avoided except for one incident on the way in. Some good woodcraft found us a game trail which was easier than hacking our way in. Along the trail there were some nasty looking lizard-beasts that we translocated-stealthed by but Oz fumbled his stealth roll and attracted their attention! His first instinct was to 'make himself big and scary' but his Animal training kicked in and he knew that staying still would confuse their motion-tracking hunter instincts. A couple of skill checks later the party was back on the way but not before Oz threw Kiwi a wink after he grumbled about earning extra checks off a bail. "Failing is a learning opportunity" We knew we were drawing close when our Vision Globe's detected an open space in the shape of a donut at the heart of the Jungle Ball. We proceeded to cut our way in and emerged into a picturesque nature grove full of delightful little floating seed fairies and lovely plant-life. Unfortunately, it also was full of recently awoken guardian beasts who did not appreciate our 'hack your way in' entry to their sacred grove. Before most of us could act the guardians attacked and proceeded to show us just how nasty a bunch of pissed off plants could be. Kiwi with his unnaturally fast power-up cycle charged into the grove and proceeded to attack a few of the bigger guardians. Oz and Pete needing longer were quickly hemmed in and surrounded before they could effectively power up. There was debate about how to proceed with Kiwi'Ka calling for a 'slash and burn' strategy since the ball was going to fall into the sun in a couple years anyway. Oz was more reluctant since it seemed wrong to him to find this special place and then trample it just because we could. Pete was his usual enigmatic self about the matter but I'm sure for the record he'd like to say that 'it was a terrible plan.' Oz suggested a 'loot and run' strategy instead but deferred to Kiwi's plan since he's the Kiwi'ka! Ultimately, the plants helped define our strategy when they proceeded to kick the snot out of us. Those lovely little seed fairies actually turned out to be nasty burrowing-drain-your-RF-then-your-AC-until-you-die fairies which aren't nearly as nice. Their bigger brothers were even worse with high strikes, PD, DR, and Stun! In that first engagement neither Oz nor Pete even attacked before we decided to retreat on segment 12 of the first round. We fled back into the jungle where thankfully we were safe from the guardians who did not pursue. Those nasty little seed fairies were still stuck to us but they were easy to wipe off once we were out of the heat of battle. After another strategy session we decided that maybe the pristine integrity of the Grove could stay intact after all and we'd try a different approach. Under our new plan we'd Organically Merge closer to the Seed Pods while Pete made noise in the brush and distracted the Guardians. Once close, we'd Translocate in, grab as many pods as we could carry, and bail out. That plan actually worked pretty well. Pete distracted the larger guardians while Oz and Kiwi snuck closer and then beamed into the middle of the pods. Once we were close we could see that they were actually large spherical pods sort of like a corn-husk which contained six smaller pods with about thirty seeds each. The large husks were very tough but the thought of acquiring so many seeds was too tempting. Kiwi and Oz proceeded to cut through the *very tough* pod stalk while taking hits from more seed fairies but no larger guardians thanks to Pete's distraction. Once we had the pod free, Kiwi quickly beamed Oz to safety and then paused briefly. Just long enough to critically dodge a shit-ton of attacks as the other Guardians reached him before beaming out with the Pod. We split up the smaller pods, two each, and then flew back to the shuttle. We had to fly ourselves since Chip'Kick had been forced to abandon us when he was summoned by the Vizier. Mental note* Oz will smooth things out with him and the Vizier when he gets a chance. We spent one block sleep-learning Dreamwalk (Kiwi did something else) in readiness for our dream assault on Cloacka. That's where we left things! 22 genaric 1 combat 11 combat for the logger . Back to Space Junk Log Category:Space Junk